


The Full Human Experience

by aibidil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, HP: EWE, Humor, Kid Fic, M/M, Nits, Parenthood, Trying Times, creative cursing, head lice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 15:57:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13414665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aibidil/pseuds/aibidil
Summary: Malfoys do not get nits, but it seems Malfoy-Potters do—in which Harry and Draco face the Parasite That Must Not Be Named. Or, a curtain fic, in which the curtains are infested tresses.





	The Full Human Experience

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to **frnklymrshnkly** for the fab beta job and for laughing with me!

Draco looks at the small head in between his knees and sighs. “That’s it. I’m Flooing the Manor for house-elf backup.”

“No you are not,” Harry says, and his voice is calm but firm. “When you have children, you have to embrace it.” He stops and wrinkles his nose at the messy head of hair between his legs. “All of it.”

“I embrace parenthood!” Draco scoffs defensively. “I embraced diapering charms and human-milk-imitating potion-making and fudging ‘nighttime parenting.’” He finishes an aggressive set of air quotes and heaves a breath. “I am _not_ embracing motherfruiting hair-dwelling _parasites!_ ”

“Wha’s a parasite?” Lily asks.

“It’s a place with pears. Pear site,” explains Scorpius. “Ow, Dad!”

“Sorry,” Harry mumbles, peering at Scorpius’s scalp.

“Can we watch a show?” Scorpius asks.

“Yeah!” Lily echoes. “Caillou!”

Draco whispers a string of obscenities under his breath.

“Yeah, alright,” Harry says, trying not to laugh at the hilarious karmic smiting that is Draco whisper-ranting about how Caillou is “creating a generation of entitled, whinging humans” while he tries to pass off his parenting duties onto unsuspecting house-elves.

Scorpius raises his hand and the telly remote zooms across the room to him.

“I can’t see what the fruit I’m doing over here. The glasses aren’t enough,” Harry says once the children are settled with their show. “Can you cast an Eyesight Charm on me?”

Draco gingerly removes his hands from Lily’s hair, but holds them, paralysed, in mid-air. He looks at his wand, sitting on the sofa, back at his hands, back at his wand, back at his hands. Eventually he takes a fortifying breath, waves his hand in Harry’s direction, and a shimmering blue light heads for Harry’s eyes.

“Did you just cast that _wandless?”_ Harry cries. “What the duck, Draco! You could’ve hurt me!”

Draco raises an eyebrow. “Needs must.”

“The bloody things only—”

“Dad said a naughty word!!” Lily giggles.

“The blustery things only live on human scalps! They can’t infest your wand! They’re not termites!”

“I’m not taking any chances here, Harry,” Draco says, his lip curling as he inspects Lily’s scalp. “Are you at all clear what we’re looking for? Because I am decidedly not clear.”

Harry leans over, “You’re looking for little bumps on the hair shaft near the root. Like there, see?”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Draco claims.

“Stop projecting!” Harry whispers urgently. “These innocent humans don’t have any of your social baggage about nits. It’s not a big deal for them, if we don’t let it be a big deal for us.”

Draco fixes Harry with a withering look. “And you’re doing such an excellent job of not letting it be a big deal?” He gestures pointedly at the elbow-length yellow gloves Harry is wearing.

“That’s for the potion,” Harry claims, and they both know that’s a lie. But as if to prove it, Harry reaches for the phial of NitsNoMore he’d purchased earlier and dumps a large glug onto Scorpius’s head.

“Did you even read the instructions?” Draco asks cooly. “I suspect it’s not formulated to work properly if you dump the entire fruiting bottle on his head.”

“I’m not taking any chances,” Harry says with a grimace, as he rubs the potion into Scorpius’s hair. “Why do we need to comb it through if we have the potion?”

Draco sighs and manages to pull out his didactic tone even amidst his disgust. “Because unscrupulous wizards overused the potions—”

“Witches and wizards,” Harry corrects unthinkingly.

“Because unscrupulous magical people overused the potions and the fudging insects _evolved_ and now the world has magical bloody head lice.”

Harry sits back, looking utterly defeated. “I am a very powerful wizard,” he says, and it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. “Can I hit their heads with like, a diffuse _Petrificus Totalus_ or Knockback Jinx and then shake them upside down to dislodge the nits?”

Draco stares at him for a few long seconds. “I can see the headline of tomorrow’s _Prophet_ now: The Chosen Child-Abuser.”

Harry glares back, not finding the situation funny in the slightest. “Let’s just get it over with, okay?”

“Fine by me,” Draco says, pulling the metal comb through Lily’s wild hair. “At least the magical nit combs help get the bastards off the shaft. It’s even worse for Muggles, poor sods.”

“Draco.” Harry’s voice is flat and disapproving.

“What? It’s true.” Draco sighs. “You should’ve had to do Lily. She has your unruly hair.”

Harry snorts. “So I’ve lucked out with Scorpius now and then having to do yours later.”

Draco groans. “I cannot believe I’ve been reduced to this. Malfoys don’t get nits.”

“Malfoy-Potters do!” Scorpius chuckles from the floor, his potion-soaked hair sticking straight up from where Harry had tried to comb it.

“And do you really think,” Harry asks, holding the nit comb between his teeth as he pins up a section of Scorpius’s hair, “that you’ve escaped it? What with the way you fall asleep in their beds reading stories? With your hair as long as it is right now?”

Draco presses his lips together and doesn’t answer. It’s clear they’re both teetering precariously at the edge of insanity.

“You know what’s the best part of this whole shambles?” Draco asks.

“What?” Harry mumbles around the comb in his mouth.

“With the way the nit life-cycle progresses, we need to do this again every day for the next two to three weeks, or else we invite a _reinfestation.”_

Draco’s tone seems to imply that while an infestation is bad, a _reinfestation_ would be beyond the pale.

Draco turns back to Lily’s head, pulling her hair into sections, then says warily, “Harry.”

“What?” Harry asks.

“Look at her head.”

Harry leans in close, trying to get a good vantage point. “Oh Merlin’s saggy knickers!” he cries, jumping backward and hitting the back of the sofa.

Draco holds Lily’s head with the very tips of his fingers and pushes her as far away from his body as he can manage. “That is a full-grown one, isn’t it?”

“That was a motherfruiting Acromantula,” Harry hisses, and Draco starts to laugh, which makes Harry laugh, and within a few seconds they’re both howling with laughter, tears in their eyes.

“What’s funny?” Lily asks over the grating tones of Caillou.

“Nothing,” Draco answers. “Just your dads losing the plot.”

“Hey, Draco?” Harry says, and he sounds repentant.

“Yes?”

“Please Floo the Manor for house-elf backup.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Draco says, hopping up from the sofa and all but running towards the grate.

“Daddy said a naughty word!” Scorpius hollers.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I'm sorry. I'm itchy too.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://aibidil.tumblr.com).


End file.
